


Wide Open

by Twig



Category: Vantage Point
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twig/pseuds/Twig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When he closes his eyes, he can still see Kent's threadbare reassuring smile."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wide Open

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILERS for the movie
> 
> *
> 
> There's a companion fic, "Pine." You don't need to read that one to get this one, but they're meant to be read together.

Saving the President doesn't save Barnes from the shitstorm that follows. A fox infiltrated the henhouse. Anyone and everyone Kent Taylor had even the slightest interaction with is suspect, from the 60-year-old landlady he rented from, the Polish grocer he shopped weekly at, to the voluptuous Jamaican bank teller he flirted once or twice with. 

And at the center of that circle is Thomas Barnes, a smart man, a loyal agent, with twenty years of experience and finely honed instincts. 

How could he have not known? Not even suspected? There must have been a clue, some sort of a sign, a look in the eye that wasn't quite right. The board of inquiry wants the arterial spray of gushing truth, but Barnes is tapped dry. He's already looked himself in the mirror and demanded the same of his reflection a million times. 

Memory is a funny thing, Barnes knows. If he squints hard enough, a hastily ended phone call could become a conspiracy and a kind smile could become a cunning manipulation. But hindsight isn't always 20/20. The image of Kent bleeding, dying, dead, is burnt into Barnes' retina, but when he closes his eyes, he can still see Kent's threadbare reassuring smile. 

* 

_come back, Barnes, we need you. We need a man like you._

*

The President vouches for him. The leader of the free world thinks he's a good man, and that's got to count for something. Barnes got five minutes of face time with him in the hospital, and there was gratitude written all over Ashton's face. It was reassuring until the other Service agents -- men he'd worked with, known for years and years -- escorted him away like a suspect. 

Barnes didn't protest. 

* 

_you need this, Barnes, you need to get back on that horse._

*

Kent Taylor is quietly and swiftly buried. 

Barnes made the arrangements. 

For the sake of his career and reputation, he should've distanced himself. The Service would have taken care of things. They steamrolled over fourteen dead agents, eighty-two civilian casualties, nine car crashes, and hundreds of witnesses. Dealing with Kent's dead body would have been nothing. Less than nothing. 

It isn't nothing to Barnes. 

It should be, though. He certainly didn't hesitate when the President's life was on the line. The danger may be over now, the adrenaline passed, but that doesn't change the facts. Barnes never knew Kent. The man was never his friend, never his confidant. Kent Taylor most likely wasn't even his real name, though his cover is flawless, perfect in every way. It needed to have been perfect to have passed the scrutiny necessary to give him clearance, and even now, the threads have yet to unravel. 

Barnes knows he shouldn't give a damn. He killed a nameless traitor, an act that deserves no remorse. Kent doesn't exist. Never existed. Nothing more than a ruse, little more than a figment of imagination and good acting. 

But Barnes makes the arrangements anyway, and he's there, watching, as ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

He tries to lay Kent to rest. 

*

_need you back, man, don't leave me with this bunch of jackasses._

*

A funny sense of vast distance overcomes Barnes, and he has to sit before vertigo does the job for him. On the edge of the bed, at just the right spot, he can see past the open doorway into the living room, across the rest of his apartment. Small, yet somehow far bigger than Barnes can stand. He wouldn't go so far as to call it bleak. That's a word for the desert and the moon, and he isn't quite there yet. 

He dumped his bottle of Effexor into the toilet two weeks ago, and his hand hasn't shook since he saved the President. There's going to be a commendation for him, and it won't be long before he's back on active duty. 

Everything is going to be quite all right. 

_Everything's going to be all right._

But if Barnes closes his eyes, if he dares to close his eyes, then he will remember, too clearly, too well. The heat -- the _warmth_ \-- of Kent's body sitting next to him, talking in a low murmur. 

It's going to be all right. We need you. You need this. _I_ need you. 

_I need you, Tom_ and Barnes knew (he _thought_ he knew) exactly what it was. Not desire, not lust, not love, nothing like love, but kind of close to it. Kent was the younger agent, but he was never star-eyed. Looked at Barnes with admiration and respect, but not awe, and Barnes had liked that. Then he was down, he was out, but Kent was there, Kent was _there_ , and Barnes didn't question it, because it felt _good_ to be needed. To be comforted. 

Kent _believed_ in him, and Barnes didn't understand. He was good as done, and here was an opportunity for advancement a guy like Kent could've taken. Instead, Kent pushed him, coaxed him, encouraged him with every means necessary, went far and above what friendship or duty demanded. Barnes was _grateful_ goddammit, but he never understood what Kent got out of it. 

But now Barnes knows. Really knows. He was a vital piece of a terrible plan. 

The understanding wrenches something from him. 

* 

If Barnes closes his eyes, he'd see Kent's smile, that secret smile (if he squints, it's a _knowing_ smile) the morning after. 

He doesn't need to close his eyes to recall the sight of Kent bleeding, dying, dead. 

Barnes keeps his eyes wide open.


End file.
